REVIEW: Mars Rover Curiosity: An Inside Account from Curiosity's Chief Engineer (nonfiction audiobook) by Rob Manning and William L. Simon, narrated by Bronson Pinchot

I haven't been very good about writing reviews in a timely manner for the past few weeks (months?). This is one of those that I should have reviewed soon after I finished it, and I just...didn't. At least I'm finally getting around to it, I guess.

Anyway, I checked this out via my library's Overdrive service. I have to admit that I didn't really know much about Curiosity before listening to this. I knew that it existed, I knew a few fun things related to it (pictures, it singing itself Happy Birthday, etc.), and I knew that it continues to function well past its 2-year mission. Recent(ish) news about things like the Juno mission and the Philae lander, plus my enjoyment of Andy Weir's The Martian, led to me wanting to read space-related nonfiction, and this book looked like a good one.

Now, let's see if I can remember what topics were covered. The book didn't actually start with Curiosity, but rather with an earlier project Manning worked on, the Sojourner Rover. This allowed him to compare and contrast the thought processes that went into Sojourner with the ones that went into Curiosity, a much larger and heavier rover with a different set of scientific instruments. I found it all fascinating, and Manning did a great job of describing the problems and most of the solutions in a way I was able to understand.

I really liked this book when it was covering the problems that needed to be solved to get a rover safely to Mars and make sure it could function in extreme cold. I also liked a lot of the stuff on Curiosity's (and its instruments') capabilities, as well as the team management stuff. However, I winced a bit during Manning's repeated mentions of budget issues. Even the “cheaper, faster” mission budgets seemed enormous to me.

I tend to be really bad about starting to read nonfiction books and then never finishing them, so it's usually audio or nothing for me. However, audio nonfiction doesn't always work well. Mars Rover Curiosity was doing fine, up until the list of all of Curiosity's scientific instruments. It made for very dry listening, and I imagine I'd have skimmed that part if I had been reading a paper version of the book instead. The narration itself was okay – not terribly exciting, but Bronson Pinchot's voice fit the text well enough that, since I didn't know what Manning sounded like, it was easy to forget that it wasn't Manning himself narrating the book.

All in all, this was an interesting look at the work, planning, testing, and, at times, politics that went into Curiosity.

REVIEW: Kizumonogatari: Wound Tale (audiobook) by NisiOisiN, narrated by Keith Silverstein, Eric Kimerer, Cristina Vee

Kizumonogatari is the prequel to Bakemonogatari (which I have neither read nor seen). It's one of Vertical's first two audiobook releases.

I go over the book's fanservice-y scenes in detail in my review but otherwise don't include much in the way of spoilers.

Review:

Kizumonogatari stars Koyomi Araragi, a 17-year-old loser. He avoids having friends because he believes they would “lower his intensity as a human” (although one wonders if this isn't just his way of making himself feel better because no one wants to be friends with him). His life seems to be going nowhere, until one day he comes across Tsubasa Hanekawa, class president and all-around model student, and accidentally gets an excellent view of her panties when the wind blows her skirt straight up. Instead of getting upset or fleeing in embarrassment, Hanekawa decides to be Araragi's first friend.

Later, Araragi tries to wipe away the memory of Hanekawa's panties by buying some porn. On his way home, he comes across Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade (name found online, because otherwise I'd never have figured out how to spell it all), “the iron-blooded, hot-blooded, yet cold-blooded vampire.” Someone has removed all four of her limbs, and she is dying. She asks Araragi to save her by letting her drink him dry, and he, in a fit of pity and realization that he's a loser whose life, he decides, is probably worth less than hers, agrees. He expects to die but instead wakes up as Kiss-Shot's new servant, the one who now has to get her limbs back from the vampire hunters who took them.

This book was garbage on multiple levels. I was a little surprised at how much I hated it. Both the author and the series are very popular, so I figured that, even if there was as much fanservice as I'd heard, the book would still have other redeeming qualities. Unfortunately, it did not.

However, I do have some good things to say, so I'll start there. The narration was fabulous. Cristina Vee, Keith Silverstein, and Eric Kimerer are to be commended. They did as well as they possibly could, considering the material they had to work with, and they managed to make the clunky dialogue somewhat listenable. I especially enjoyed Cristina Vee's work – if I hadn't known better, I'd have thought there were two female narrators, one for Hanekawa and Kiss-Shot's cutesy voices and one for the older version of Kiss-Shot. The desperation she put into dying Kiss-Shot's voice was great.

The voice acting combined with the background music, which went so far as to feature specific character themes, made listening to Kizumonogatari a little like listening to an anime. I really enjoyed that and hope that Vertical continues their foray into audiobooks. Hopefully with better books than this one.

All right, now for the bad. I suppose I'll start with the gross fanservice. NisiOisiN stopped short of having Hanekawa or Kiss-Shot suggestively suck on or eat something, but what did happen was still pretty awful. I swear, at least an hour or two of this 9.5-hour book was Araragi obsessing over breasts and panties. None of it was what you'd call sexy or erotic, just clunky and awkward. The description of Hanekawa's panties felt like it took ages (the text mentioned that Araragi had gone on for almost two pages), Hanekawa's reactions were closer to how women in porn movies might behave than to anything resembling reality, and unfortunately there was worse to come.

In one scene, Kiss-Shot spoke to Araragi and then laid down to sleep in the same room while he was still there. Araragi was amazed at how casually she did this and found himself thinking that it would be rude for him not to...do something (the “something” wasn't stated, but I figure “grope her” was high on the list – so yeah, Araragi thought it was impolite not to sexually assault a girl who was trusting enough to fall asleep in the same room as him). There were multiple jokes about Kiss-Shot's flat-chestedness when she was in her 10-year-old form, and then even more jokes about the hugeness of her chest when she was back to her 27-year-old form.

In one especially cringe-worthy scene, Araragi asked Hanekawa to allow him to touch her breasts, ostensibly to help him better ignore Kiss-Shot's enormous breasts during his upcoming battle with her. Hanekawa agreed and went so far as to remove her bra and tell him he had to fondle her breasts for a full minute. Araragi, shocked at his good fortune but nervous about the possibility that she might later claim that he'd forced himself on her, asked her to clearly voice her consent. Soon Araragi was using that as an opportunity to embarrass Hanekawa by making her talk dirty to him. The exact things he asked her to say: “Araragi, I beg you, please fondle my bra-less boobies! It's a great honor to have my breasts fondled by you! I've worked hard to grow these lewd breasts, all so that you could squish them one day, Araragi!” Oh, Cristina Vee. I hope they paid you well.

The story wasn't anywhere near good enough to balance out the grossness. Araragi won most of his battles through blind luck. The big revelations near the end weren't terribly shocking, either because I'd begun to guess what was going on or because Araragi's narration was just that bad. Seriously, the guy could suck the fun and excitement out of anything. In Araragi's first battle, his enemy turned his own arms into swords and hacked Araragi's hands off. It should have been a fast-paced, action-packed scene, and yet Araragi persisted in narrating everything to death.

The ending was worse than I expected. Hanekawa had to figure out pretty much everything on her own and then tell Araragi. Araragi, meanwhile, was horrified by one particular bit of info (which he had to practically be beaten over the head with) but then forgot about that horror when the story needed him to pity Kiss-Shot again. The weird relationship that Araragi and Kiss-Shot ended up with didn't sit well with me, but I suppose it was necessary to make room for all the series' other related stories.

I've been intrigued by the series' various anime adaptations for years - the clips I've seen have looked absolutely gorgeous. However, I think this book has finally killed my desire to see them. I'm thankful for that, considering how much Aniplex of America charges.

REVIEW: Foreigner (audiobook) by C.J. Cherryh, narrated by Daniel Thomas May

I first read and reviewed a paper copy of Foreigner only a few months ago, so there's a lot I won't go into again, and I won't be writing another summary. However, it's worth writing a second review. I have some comments to make on both the audiobook experience and on the rereading experience. As a result, I'll be touching on some spoilery things.

The audiobook doesn't include the pronunciation guide or the glossary that can be found in my paper copy of the book. Although I missed the glossary a little, the pronunciation guide wasn't necessary. I didn't actively compare Daniel Thomas May's pronunciation to the guide, but I do know that his pronunciation of “Jago,” at least, followed what Cherryh wrote in her guide. Maybe I'll finally start mentally pronouncing Jago's name correctly while reading the books.

Although I had some issues with May's narration, overall I enjoyed it. He was particularly excellent when narrating Bren's thoughts and dialogue (basically most of the book), infusing the lines with just the right amount of emotion. His atevi voices didn't work quite as well for me, but I'm not sure there was much he could have done about that. After all, atevi aren't supposed to do much obvious emoting.

FYI, this next bit is where the spoilers come in.

As far as the rereading experience went, I'm not sure if I liked the story more or about the same the second time through, but I did end up with a ton of respect for Cherryh's handling of POV. The first time through, all I got was Bren's interpretation of what was going on. The second time through made it clear that Foreigner was essentially at least two stories in one – Bren's side of things (“someone is trying to kill me, I don't know why, and I'm not sure which of the atevi around me, if any, I can trust”) and the atevi side of things (“how does the spaceship change things, will the Mospheiran humans betray us, will Bren in particular betray us and/or has he already done so?”). I never once noticed a moment when Bren reacted in ways that didn't fit the story as he knew it, but at the same time I was able to understand more of what motivated the atevi.

Although I'm going to continue to do my first read-throughs via my paper copies (or e-book, whatever I end up with), I definitely plan to follow them up with the audiobook versions. I'm looking forward to listening to Invader in the near future.

REVIEW: Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore (audiobook) by Robin Sloan, narrated by Ari Fliakos

This is another one of those that I should have reviewed sooner after finishing it. It's been a couple weeks, and my memories are fuzzier. Plus, I took a break while listening to the book, so my listening experience was pretty stretched out.

So, what can I say about the story without revealing too much? Clay, desperate for work after losing his Web design job, stumbles across a little place called Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. It's in a seedy location (next to a strip club), there don't seem to be many customers, and the store itself is a little strange, but Clay needs the money. Besides, he's kind of intrigued. Most of the store's visitors never actually seem to buy anything, but rather check out mysterious volumes from a collection Clay is specifically told not to browse or otherwise look at too closely.

Clay's curiosity gets the better of him, and he starts to investigate. Slowly, at first, making a three-dimensional model of the store in order in order to see if there's a pattern to the checkouts. But then he involves other people and begins to dig more deeply.

I loved this book, at first. The mystery of the bookstore fascinated me. I wanted to know who the store's regulars were, why they were checking out those books, and what, in general, was going on. The appeal that the mystery had for me reminded me a lot of Peter Clines' 14, although this book didn't have 14's Lovecraftian undertones. The fact that everything was tied to books was just icing on the cake.

The introduction of Kat Potente to the story made me realize I wasn't quite the kind of nerd this book was written for, however. To put it bluntly, I'm female. I don't think I've ever felt the need to use “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” in a review before, but that was utterly and completely what Kat was. Clay set up a super-specific ad designed to attract a very specific kind of person to the store, and Kat appeared. She was, of course, beautiful, but in an adorably flawed way. Literally everything about her was adorable and wonderful, from the way she blushed to her excitement over catching a glimpse of Clay's model of the store. Not only that, but she happened to be a Google employee, which turned out to be enormously useful for Clay's investigation. I couldn't figure out why Clay thought she was great and yet thought of his equally perfect (in a different way) apartment mate as an android ("I don't mean that in a bad way!").

The thing that got me was that there were opportunities for Clay to get to know Kat as a fully-fleshed out person, beyond his “OMG she's adorable and wonderful and also wants to have sex with me” initial reaction. She was almost creepily devoted to Google, something I thought would put a wedge between her and Clay but somehow never did, at least not for long. She had a deep obsession with Google Forever, a section of Google interested in life extension and immortality. Her reaction to the idea of achieving immortality was so intense that I figured there had to be a story there...except Clay never asked her. It bothered me that, as far as Clay was concerned, Kat was adorableness and Google connections, nothing else. A rift developed between them later on in the book, but rather than either one of them realizing that they didn't really fit (she was too bound up in Google, he was intimidated by how smart and driven everyone she knew seemed to be, etc.) or even just talking their issues through, they just magically got back together again for no real reason.

The Google stuff was interesting, at first, but I eventually got a little annoyed with it. And also creeped out by it. I don't know if it was intentional, but Sloan did a great job of making Google seem, at best, like its own separate society and, at worst, a bit like a cult. And the characters trusted Google so much. I winced every time Clay or Kat took something that was supposed to be a secret to Google to scan or analyze.

It was, I suppose, part of what made this book feel a bit dated. Aside from that, there was the constant grappling with the value of digital vs. physical. Yes, articles stating that physical books are better than e-books (or vice versa) are still being written, but not to the degree they were when this book first came out, and you could see that in the way the issues were handled. I wonder how much more dated this will feel in 10 or 20 years?

I really liked the first two thirds or so of the book, but found myself becoming less and less interested when the focus shifted from the bookstore to the secret society. I disliked Clay and Kat's methods for solving the various mysteries, and I really felt for the one secret society member who acted dismayed each time they mentioned using a computer to analyze in seconds things that had taken the society years, decades, or longer to work on. After all, sometimes it's not the solution that's important so much as the process of arriving at that solution. I was just thankful that Sloan made sure that Google and its computers couldn't quite solve everything.

All in all, this made for okay work-time listening. I really liked the narrator, and I smiled when the producer took advantage of the audiobook format and included audio excerpts from Clay's favorite books (although they were very cheesy). I just wish that this had ended as strongly as it had begun.